User talk:Stephencohn

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome! riana_dzasta 07:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
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Regarding your article Stephen Cohn
I recommend you read Autobiography, just to get a feel for how people treat autobiographies around here. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Regards, riana_dzasta 07:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the solution to this would be to list it at articles for deletion (AfD). Here the community can discuss it, whereas the process by which it might be deleted now, proposed deletion, affords no discussion. I agree with you in that the content all seems neutral, factual and verifiable. However, it is really standard procedure to list autobiographies at articles for deletion so that it gets a look from the wider community. I'll ask the administrator who proposed it for deletion whether he would be OK with listing it at AfD, and if he's alright with it, I'll provide you a link to the debate, once I've got it up. Feel free to post your own thoughts there - but please try to be patient throughout the process. Nothing worse than an article creator insulting people at a deletion discussion :)
 * If you have further questions, please drop by and ask me! All the best, riana_dzasta 03:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Can you please provide external links to verify the information in the article? A MySpace link and a personal website don't really make the cut. Thanks, riana_dzasta 07:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Your autobiography
I think most regulars on Wikipedia would be at least a little bit sketched out by someone writing a biography about themselves on this page, even if you are notable, it has conflict of interest and original research written all over it. Consider backing off from the article and asking some other editors to do their own source searching to make the article happen. Not to be harsh, but if nobody cares about your article, it's not going to get worked on anytime soon. To flip that around, since your article hasn't really been worked on much, it doesn't appear that people care about it, and it's simply not going to get worked on fast.

Your article has not a single reference cited. This is very bad. You should do some reading on Wikipedia policy. Like Riana said above, I would recommend putting it up for AfD and see where it goes from there. If the community wants the article to even be here, then it will stay. As you can see, creating an account, just to make a biography about yourself, is very much frowned upon. If you need help with the AfD, let me know. Wikidan829 16:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your note and for your advice. At your suggestion, I have done more reading of Wikipedia Policy and particularly about references. I have some further questions and hope you will have time to look them over and answer me.

Please note that since Riana first wrote to me, a number changes have taken place over a period of months. The aritcle was marked for possible deletion in January. Also a number of suggestions were made regarding internal and external links and about the location of references for my Emmy. I then added a large number of internal and then external links, including several for the Emmy Award. After all these changes were made, the tag for possible deletion was removed, and instead, a tag was placed on the talk page say that the article had been accepted as a Wikibiography Project and was awaiting evaluation - or at least, that's how I read it. So if I understand what I read correctly, the issue of deletion has been dealt with since Riana made the suggestion above.

Regarding references: The Wikipedia section on references says that particularly when negetive or potentially libelous material is written, then references are essential. Since my aritcle doesn't contain any negetive or controversial material and since I site links for almost all of the credits and organiztions in the article, I'm not sure what other references would be useful or necessary. There is an aritcle about me in the Marquis Who's Who which I could site if this would be considered a useful reference.

Lastly, several of my colleagues, none of whom are more notable, have written aritcles about themselves and have not had these issues come up and have note been taged at all. Why, then is this happening with my article? Please note that in the various tags and discussions, there seemed to be some dissagreement about whether the aritcle should have been taged. I would appreciate hearing your reaction to the above. Thank you.Stephen 00:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your concerns. 1) References are not optional. Any claim in an article is subject to challenge if not documented; Wikipedia is sceptical about good and bad things. 2) Marquis Who's Who is notoriously not considered to meet our standards of reliable sourcing. 3) If you know of articles which are being maintained by the subjects of the articles, let other editors know so we can monitor them. Hope this helps. -- Orange Mike  19:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Please read these instructions on how to cite sources for Wikipedia. Merely dumping a bunch of external links at the bottom of an article does not constitute providing references for verification of asserted facts. -- Orange Mike 18:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * You need to provide sources in context as references for each item (such as "Emmy-winning"); (independent, third-party, impartial sources that meet our standards). Proper references are inserted at the end of the clause or sentence in which a fact is asserted. Links dumped higgledy-piggledy at the bottom of the page are not a viable practice. -- Orange Mike 18:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)